Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3

Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason’s involvement with Prokofiev's music goes back to her childhood. His early “Harp” Prelude, part of the Op. 12 set of piano compositions composed when Prokofiev was still a student at the St Petersburg Conservatory, became, Kanneh-Mason tells Apple Music Classical, “one of my first proper pieces… There’s actually a recording of me playing it from when I’m about 11. I remember finding it very quirky and very charming. I also felt the humour that Prokofiev creates is very unique. I think that’s what set him apart for me as a composer from a very young age.” That charming piece appears as part of this all-Prokofiev release. But what galvanised Kanneh-Mason into planning this album was her falling in love with his Piano Concerto No. 3. This, the most famous of Prokofiev’s concertos, was premiered in Chicago by the composer himself in 1921, when he was trying to establish himself outside post-Revolutionary Russia as a composer pianist. Kanneh-Mason’s performance with the Philharmonia, conducted by Ryan Bancroft, reveals a fresh, life-affirming work with just enough insouciant cheekiness to offset its moments of warm-hearted effulgence—the return of the opening theme on the strings sounds like a great sigh of happiness. And in the second movement’s wryly graceful theme and extraordinary range of variations, marvel at how clearly Kanneh-Mason articulates the sprightly fifth variation. For Kanneh-Mason, part of the Third Concerto’s attraction is its very straightforward yet enormously varied range of character: “It’s very clear which lines and which sections are lyrical and which sections are percussive; which sections are charming, which ones are dances, and which ones are rhythmic. I think he really makes that very clear from the score. So I wouldn’t say the challenge is knowing what to project: it’s making those characters come across, making what you’re projecting as clear as possible.” Kanneh-Mason also includes selections from Prokofiev’s two piano suites arranged from his ballets Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella. In these pieces, such as “Juliet as a Young Girl”, Kanneh-Mason emphasises not the kind of virtuosity she effortlessly yet so winningly conveys in the concerto, but instead prioritises characterisation. “I think Prokofiev is a great ballet composer,” she says; “he really understands the charming and humorous elements of dance. That’s something that he does uniquely and very differently to other composers. I also think he’s very good at expressing himself through rhythmic articulation in a way that’s repetitive but always alive—never monotonous.” This is superbly illustrated by the two works that bookend her programme. First, the Toccata whose motoric throbbing is soon displaced by a surprising range of pianistic fireworks; and then finally, as a surprisingly effective complement, Piano Sonata No. 3, a work completed in 1917 but largely based on a work Prokofiev first composed 10 years earlier when he was just 16. Even that early work shows what a virtuosic firebrand the young composer was: “Prokofiev often uses rhythms that are slightly off the beat,” explains Kanneh-Mason; “So the right hand or the left hand will often be starting one quaver later than each other. So the biggest challenge is to get the precision of those two voices coming in one quaver apart, and not have it sound like one hand is just late or one hand is a bit out of time! “Also, you want the whole thing to flow seamlessly, otherwise the writing can sound quite disjointed. And in the lyrical passages, there’s lots of chromaticism and inner voices—you want to be aware of them, but not in a way that detracts from the top lines.” Yet the work, lasting barely eight minutes but sounding as eventful as any multi-movement sonata, well exemplifies what attracts Kanneh-Mason to this colourful Russian composer: “The fact that he balances these different modes of composition from rhythmic to lyrical, to grotesque, to charming and ballet-like—the fact that he can combine all of these things together in one piece, I find very compelling. You really get to experience the range of what the piano is capable of in just one piece of music.”